My son Owen and I just drove across half the country. He has a summer job in St. Paul, Minn., and we are giving him our 10-year-old car. Hence, a road trip! Driving along I-90 and I-94 for 1,800 miles gives you time to reflect on our nation’s transportation system. Did it just spring up,…

3D Interactive Visualization of US Senators’ Voting Records Click to interact. 3D Interactive Visualization of US Representatives’ Voting Records Click to interact. Ron Paul is the outlier on the lower left. The data points were generated by a technique called multi-dimensional scaling with relaxation, in which the high dimensional space of votes is projected into…

Congressman Jay Inslee will join Congressman Jim McDermott, former Canadian Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh, and Washington State Labor Council President Jeff Johnson at NWroots, the July 9th conference for liberal political activists, bloggers, candidates, and elected officials. The agenda includes keynote addresses, sessions on labor, health care, immigration, media, banking, agriculture, & electronic voting; documentaries,…

The Seattle-PI has an article New business PAC to County: Support transit tax that should be an eye-opener for Tim Eyman and his anti-tax, anti-government allies. The article reports on the creation of a new business PAC  that is affiliated with the Chamber of Commerce. One specific issue the new group feels strongly about is…

Click here for visualization. You can use your arrow keys to navigate in 3D space and compare senators’ voting scores along three dimensions:  labor, environmental, and racial equity. It’s amazing how far apart Democrats and Republicans appear in the 3D space. Feedback is welcome. I updated the page with clearer, brief instructions and explanation on…

Do you know about the NWroots Conference in Seattle on July 9th? NWroots is a conference for liberal political activists, bloggers, policy wonks, candidates, elected officials, and anyone who cares about progressive public policy. There will be keynote speakers, breakout sessions/workshops, documentaries, a candidates social, and an after-party. Feature speakers include Congressman Jim McDermott, former…

I’m half way through Chris Hedges’ depressing and informative book, The Death of the Liberal Class. Hedges says, “The story began, I believe, in World War I, when there was a massive reconfiguration of American political life, and I would argue American culture itself.” Hedges’ thesis is that up until World War I, progressive and…

and B Media Collective descend and dance for justice. B Media does some great work. Peace, justice, economic pressure. Boycotts work.

I posted the first 4 points about organizing here. This is my condensed presentation of the 14 pages, the full presentation that is available here. This website title – The End of Capitalism – suggests that the folks behind this project are thinking like I am. I think that unfettered capitalism, free market globalism, is…

Ever notice that people  are mixed?  I mean: parts of them are really good and laudable, but other parts are difficult to deal with or downright harmful.  People can be kind to their children and pets but mean to their spouses, employees, coworkers, or fellow citizens. Or they can donate to charity but cheat on…